Product Description

Interest in the American Civil War and the role of Abraham Lincoln has grown dramatically in the last decade. Leader of the anti-slavery Republican coalition and the wartime Union, he has become a model of a particular kind of democratic politician who led rather than followed. Richard  J. Carwardine examines Lincoln's rise to power and his achievements as US president. The book explores the wider sources of Lincoln's authority and skills in embracing a broad range of elements within the Republican party. In particular, it looks at Lincoln's shrewd relationship with evangelical Protestantism. His ability to harness and channel the power of the Protestant constituency was key to his winning the presidency and rallying support behind his national and emancipatory vision.    

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #285760 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review

WINNER OF THE 2004 14th ANNUAL LINCOLN PRIZE

"This is the biography of a prudent, decisive, activist Lincoln the world
has been waiting for.  Richard Carwardine has drawn a true portrait of the
strengths of Lincoln's personal character, the development and tenacity of
Lincoln's ethical convictions, his subtle and deliberate political acumen,
his respect and embrace of moral principles for the conduct of personal
relations and public statecraft; and, finally, Carwardine demonstrates
Lincoln's mastery of men and of public opinion."
Lewis E. Lehrman, Co-Chairman of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American
History

 

 

"Rarely does a biography of a popular historical figure offer all the qualities that make for a good read: lively writing, a fresh perspective, significant insight, and a compelling narrative. Carwardine does all this and more ... There is simply no other Lincoln biography like it." Tom Schwartz, Illinois State Historian

"a brilliant addition to the Lincoln literature" Books and Culture

"Richard Carwardine’s study of the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln represents an extraordinary achievement" Mark A. Noll, Professor of History Wheaton College, IL

"The book offers an insightful, judicious and in some ways original study of Lincoln's public career." London Review of Books

" This is a work of careful reflection - concise, lucid, cogent and providing a fair, balanced, and at times fresh perspective." History Review

From the Back Cover

"Rarely does a biography of a popular historical figure offer all the qualities that make for a good read: lively writing, a fresh perspective, significant insight, and a compelling narrative. Carwardine does all this and more ... There is simply no other Lincoln biography like it."

-- Tom Schwartz, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

" The publication of this beautifully written book, which makes use of the earliest evidence and the latest insights, marks a high point in a decade that has been particularly rich in Lincoln scholarship.  No one seriously interested in Lincoln can afford to ignore Carwardine's judicious work."

-- Daniel Walker Howe, Oxford University and The Huntington Library

"The Atlantic can serve as a wonderful clarifying prism. Oxford don Richard Carwardine looks across it and paints a remarkable picture of the greatest of the Americans who fused the secular and the sacred."

-- Gabor S. Boritt, Director, Civil War Institute, Gettysburg College

 

 

As a staunch defender of national unity, a successful war-leader, and the emancipator of the slaves, Abraham Lincoln lays compelling claim to being the greatest of America's presidents.

This fresh political biography examines Lincoln both as a rising politician and as president, and focuses on the sources of his authority and achievement. It reveals his political talents and serious moral purpose but shows, too, how in pursuing office he depended on public opinion and the machinery of party. As war leader, he saw the limits as well as the possibilities of power, and looked beyond the government to other engines of support, including the churches, the humanitarian agencies and the volunteer Union army.

Carwardine's study places Lincoln firmly within the changing context of his time, and shows his talent for reading and reaching many strands of opinion as he fashioned a national purpose. Emancipation became an end in itself, toward which God’s own plan appeared to be driving him.

Richard J. Carwardine is Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University. His publications include Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (Yale University Press, 1993).

 

About the Author
Richard J. Carwardine is Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University. His many publications include Transatlantic Revivalism: Popular Evangelicism in Britain and America, 1790-1865 and Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (1993).

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Customer Reviews

A British Scholar Studies Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln's life and career continue to fascinate and inspire Americans. Richard Carwardine's recent study: "Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power" joins a select number of outstanding works on Lincoln written by a non-American scholar. Richard Carwardine is the Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University. His book, fittingly, was awarded the Lincoln prize, the first work of a British writer to be so honored.

Professor Carwardine's study tells little of Lincoln's private life: his marriage, prior relationships with women, his personal interests, his depression, his sexual orientation, and other issues that have been explored in some recent works. He seems to presuppose a knowledge in his readers of the rudimentary facts of Lincoln's life. (A duel in which Lincoln participated as a young man is mentioned twice in passing but never developed.) Instead, Professor Carwardine explores Lincoln's public career, before and during his presidency, and tries to develop the traits of character and the circumstances that made Lincoln what he was.

Thus, Professor Carwardine devotes a great deal of attention to Lincoln's overwhelming ambition -- noted by virtually every writer on this subject -- and his desire to make something of his life through work and effort. Professor Carwardine also emphasizes Lincoln's shrewdness, knowledge of human nature, ability to present himself, and facility at working with and blending together disparate groups and ideas. These pragmatic, practical abilities would prove essential to the tasks Lincoln was called upon to perform as president.

Professor Carwardine emphasizes as well another, more thoughtful side of Lincoln. His book describes Lincoln's role as a leader who endeavored to shape and mold public opinion rather than to be led by it. Professor Carwarding describes the fundamental role that moral conviction played in Lincoln's political career -- in his lifelong belief in the evil of slavery and in his devotion to the cause of democracy and the union. The book describes well the development of Lincoln's religious convictions as he assumed the burdens of his presidency. From his origins as a skeptic and freethinker, Lincoln developed a sense of a just and providential God directing the course of human events for reasons of His own. Lincoln's theology dovetailed at some point with America's evangelical Protestantism, even though Lincoln never became a traditional believer or practicing Christian. Lincoln's religious sense and moral fervor, for Professor Carwardine, became essential to the leadership he provided during the Civil War, as evidenced by the Emacipation Proclamation and the Second Inaugural Address, among much else.

Professor Carwardine offers an insightful portrayal of American life during Civil War times, particularly in middle-America as he discusses Lincoln's rise to power in Illinois and the 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas. He shows how Lincoln evolved during his years as president and how both his moral vision and his sense for the politically practicable were essential to holding the Union together and creating a sense of American nationalism.

As does much modern history and biography, Professor Carwardine is at pains to separate Lincoln, the hero and the cultural icon, from Lincoln the man, and from the facts of his life. But in spite of these efforts and of Professor Carwardine's own understated conclusions, this book presents the reader with a remarkable man and a remarkable life. Professor Carwardine concludes: "While he was certainly not reluctant to wield political authority, his practical policy grew from a strong sense of moral purpose, and his course as president was shaped not by impuslive, self-aggrandizing action or self-righteousness, but by deep thought, breadth of vision, careful concern for consequences, and a remarkable lack of pride." (p.321)

Robin Friedman